In today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* A diary entry and a “day off”
* For goodness’ sake
* The Numbers
Dean seems to enjoy writing diary entries and some folks seem to enjoy them, so for today I thought I’d post a diary entry: The Diary of Yesterday.
First, I didn’t get up until 4 a.m. yesterday. Guess I needed the rest. Then, for the first time in a long time, I decided to step back from the writing computer. I felt comfortable doing so because it’s necessary and I could use a brief break from the ongoing saga of the FOH series of novels. Sometimes the characters move so fast my ribs start hurting. (grin)
And anyway, I’ve written 372,510 words on that series alone (not counting cuts) since September 22. Plus 41,686 words on The Portals and around 11,000 words on a couple of short stories. So the plan was to take yesterday and the next few days if necessary to do mostly admin stuff. We’ll see how that works out. (grin)
First I looked at the art I licensed, and then I licensed a little more.
Then I chose an illustration and created a cover for The Portals, since that was a one-off. That’s it on the left.
Finally I settled on an illustration I already had to brand my Journey Home books (the FOH Series).
So by 10:30 a.m. I’d created covers for The Journey Home: Part 2 – Part 12. Books 9-12 are not written yet but at least the stinkin’ covers are done. (grin)
All of them are identical other than the series sequence number (see below).
I also slightly modified the cover for Book 1, The Ark: The Journey Home. I’ll swap that out while I’m uploading the other books and scheduling them for release.
Then I took what turned out to be a 2-hour break for lunch and to watch a little TV.
When I got back, I cycled back through the roughly 2000 words I wrote to end The Journey Home: Part 8. Then I ran a spell checker and got that out to my first readers.
Then, finally, I turned to my first readers’ comments and began applying them. Once I went through the whole series doing that, I took what was left of the day off.
Today I plan to write sales copy for all of those novels (well, except for 9, 10, 11, and 12 of the FOH Series because I haven’t written those yet), and get them uploaded and scheduduled for publication at D2D, Amazon, maybe Smashwords and definitely BundleRabbit (as they’re released).
This process probably will take today and tomorrow because I’m fortunate in that my son is here for the weekend. So I’ll work in the early morning, then spend the day visiting.
I’ll let you know how everything goes in tomorrow’s post. Then maybe I can get back to writing Book 9 or maybe something else on Monday.
For goodness’ sake, see “Canceling My Book Deal Was the Best Career Move I’ve Ever Made” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/canceling-my-book-deal-was-the-best-career-move-ive-ever-made/. Then see PG’s take.
My own take: Along with PG I wonder “What career?” One book is not a career. And I also wonder how many books could that author have written and published in the 9 years after she “thought it was done.” Never mind this was 11 years after she started writing it. Seriously.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
See “Reading To Buy” at https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/reading-to-buy/.
See “MurderCon 2021: The Fabulous Lineup of Classes and Presenters” at https://leelofland.com/murdercon-2021-the-fabulous-lineup-of-classes-and-presenters/.
See “Cleaning up the Story Trail for Beta Readers” at https://killzoneblog.com/2021/03/cleaning-up-the-story-trail-for-beta-readers.html.
See “Mandatory Ebook Licenses for Public Libraries” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/mandatory-ebook-licenses-for-public-libraries/.
See “Know thy reader” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/know-thy-reader/. See PG’s take.
See “Scientists Say a Physical Warp Drive Is Now Possible” at https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a35718463/scientists-say-physical-warp-drive-is-possible/. Thanks to KC for the tip. (As I told KC, I wish they’d just start working on a magnetic pulse drive propulsion system, by which the ship is pulled rather than pushed. But first they’ll have to change their current mindset. At the moment, there is no adequately descriptive antonym for propulsion.)
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………………… 670 words
Writing of The Journey Home: Part 9 (novel)
Day 1…… XXXX words. Total words to date…… XXXXX
Total fiction words for March……… 36988
Total fiction words for the year………… 235996
Total nonfiction words for March… 11110
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 57140
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 2931366
Calendar Year 2021 Novels to Date…………………… 5
Calendar Year 2021 Novellas to Date……………… X
Calendar Year 2021 Short Stories to Date… 3
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 59
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 217
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31
Disclaimer: In this blog, I provide advice on writing fiction. I advocate a technique called Writing Into the Dark. To be crystal clear, WITD is not “the only way” to write, nor will I ever say it is. However, as I am the only writer who advocates it both regularly and publicly, I will continue to do so, among myriad other topics.
Hi, you write “…there is no adequately descriptive antonym for propulsion.” How about, just a modest suggestion, attraction.
Also, for information, when I open your emails and click through to view in browser there’s no link to add a comment— I had to to open the post via your website to leave this comment. All the best
Thanks for leaving a comment, Bill. I appreciate it. And “attraction.” Duh. Of course you’re right. Thanks.
Really great work on the word counts. Sure add up when you apply the seat of your pants throughout the day, don’t they. But I think you got an overly ambitious typo there for the year: 2931366.
Hi Liam. Thanks for the comment. Yup, I do that every now and down below. (It’s correct on my spreadsheet, of course.) When I transfer the number to the Journal, instead of typing the whole number, I usually highlight the part of it that changes and replace only that. Which means sometimes I create a typo by adding in the last numeral twice. Oops.
As for the “great work” on the word counts, thanks, but nope, not really. In the numbers game, average is what matters. If I counted correctly, from Sep 22 – March 11 there are 171 days. During that time I wrote only 425196 words of fiction. Which averages only 2486 words per day.